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Support Marriage Equality? You're a Bigot!

It seems that the religious right is resorting to that old schoolyard taunt to yet again attempt to portray themselves as the victims of the fight for marriage equality.

I am rubber, you are glue…

In her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of the Board of the National Organization of Marriage, warned members of the panel that Americans must brace for the impending scorn they will receive for standing up for “religious liberty.”

In a lovely bit of circular reasoning, Gallagher bemoans the intolerance of the pro-equality community:

The great animating idea behind same-sex marriage is this: there are no relevant differences between same-sex and opposite-sex unions, and if you see a difference there’s something wrong with you. You are like a bigot opposed to interracial marriage.

If you want to see what this big new idea, embraced by law, means, ask yourself: how do we treat bigots who oppose interracial marriage? If we—and the law—accept the core ideas driving same-sex marriage, we will also have to accept the consequences for traditional faith communities, for those Americans who continue to believe that marriage is the union of husband and wife.

Apparently, there is a new type of bigot: The bigot-bigot. Strangely, Gallagher is trying to claim that supporters of marriage equality are actually bigoted themselves for thinking that treating gay couples as second-class is inherently bigoted. Around and around we go.